Abortion Bans: The Devastating Impact on Fundamental Rights
By Clare Atkinson, legal intern & Natalie Kemper, legal intern & Tamar Ezer, Associate Director, Human Rights Clinic, University of Miami School of Law
Reproductive rights in the United States (U.S.) are no longer secure. With Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court for the first time eliminated a constitutional right. Nationally, sixteen states have a total or near-total ban on abortion care.
Florida, where we live, is one of these states. Florida outlaws abortion after six weeks from the first day of the last menstrual cycle, when many women do not even know they are pregnant. At that point, it is a felony for doctors to provide an abortion. Exceptions are limited and generally inaccessible.
Florida’s abortion ban remains in place despite 57% of Florida voters casting a ballot for a constitutional amendment to reinstate access to abortion prior to viability or to protect a woman’s health. This was a narrow miss, as an amendment requires 60% of the vote to pass, and particularly impressive given the confusing and biased framing of the amendment on the ballot. The ballot indicated that the amendment’s financial impact was “indeterminate” but “may negatively affect the growth of state and local revenues over time” and speculated on the effect of invalidating laws “requiring parental consent,” although the amendment did not call for this. Despite an initial successful court challenge, due to time constraints, there was no opportunity to challenge the misleading ballot statement a second time.
Impact on Women
Restricting access to essential reproductive healthcare has devastating consequences for women and violates fundamental rights under international law. This includes the rights to health, life, privacy, equality and non-discrimination, as well as to freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
Abortion bans deny access to critical abortion services, broadly impacting reproductive care. Doctors are limited in how they can handle pregnancy-related emergencies, miscarriages, and fatal birth defects. Instead of getting the care they need, women have endured needless pain, bled out, experienced stillbirths, and even had to watch their baby die in front of them. The UN Committee against Torture has thus recognized that the denial of critical abortion care is a form of torture or cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
Moreover, abortion bans have a disproportionate impact by race and ethnicity, income, and immigration status, deepening divides based on access to resources and violating the human right to equality.
Exodus of Medical Professionals
Abortion bans further lead to an overall decrease in healthcare. They create a challenging environment for medical professionals, prompting them to practice elsewhere. Indeed, a study by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) found a 6.7% decrease in applicants to OB-GYN residency programs, and a 4.2% decrease in applications overall, in states with abortion bans. In Georgia, which implemented its six-week abortion ban in 2022, OB-GYNs, chose to leave the state due to the difficult legal landscape.
Florida’s abortion ban thus stands to exacerbate the existing shortage of OB-GYNs and create additional reproductive care “deserts,” as interviews by our Human Rights Clinic confirmed. A reproductive care doctor explained, “evidence-based practices, and acting in the best interest of the patient, go to the core of the practice of medicine. Why would students want to train and eventually practice in a state where these core principles are illegal? Bans are negatively impacting all types of healthcare in Florida—not just abortion care.” A medical student echoed the concern for practicing in Florida: “The vague and arbitrary nature of Florida’s law threatens the lives of patients and creates a frustratingly impossible situation for doctors, as situations can quickly turn life-threatening when access to care is delayed.”
Call to Action
Abortion bans decrease the quality of reproductive care, as well as access to healthcare more generally, disproportionately impacting women who are already marginalized and disadvantaged. Moreover, state bans have not led to a decrease in abortions in the U.S.
The pain, suffering, and undercutting of healthcare caused by abortion bans are needless and preventable. From Florida to Texas, extreme restrictions are denying individuals the ability to make personal medical decisions, endangering their health, and violating their fundamental rights. This is not freedom. This is not healthcare. This is government overreach at its worst. We call on Congress to protect access to critical abortion care and the fundamental rights of all women in this country.